randomness

Despite All My Rage, I Am Still Just A Rat In A Maze

Frustration, thy name is Corn Maze.

If you ever have the opportunity to partake in a corn maze… and if you have the choice between "hard" (90 minutes to finish) and "easy" (30 minutes to finish), don’t be brave. Choose the easy maze. Don’t say, "I want to get my seven bucks’ worth out of this corn maze!" T’will only end in frustration and many wrong turns.

Aaron and I went to the Fallen Timbers Corn Maze with our friend Kris H., after getting some yummy kettle corn and teriyaki beef jerky at the Grand Rapids Apple Butter Festival. (What can I say – it was our day to do bizarre Autumn activities out in the boonies.) We probably shouldn’t have done the corn maze after walking around for a couple hours looking at crafts and colonial re-enactments, but hey. At any rate, we did well for the first 2/3 of the maze, switching off leaders every time one of us led the trio into a dead end. Then we got caught in the hard part in the lower right quadrant of the maze. We were prepared to a.) cheat and cut through the rows of corn to just get to the car and leave, b.) wait until the maze organizers sent out the guides for us, or c.) camp out and make our own Society in the corn. I believe Kris plucked a corn stalk and dubbed Aaron a Knight Of The Corn, and dubbed me Princess Of The Corn (although I don’t think that’s how one actually becomes a princess). We did manage to get out without breaking any rules of the maze, though – we ended up backtracking a bit and finding the spot where the hard maze intersected the eazy maze. This led to the exit bridge, where a nice guide called down directions to the stairs of the bridge.

All in all… I’m never doing another corn maze again anytime soon.

spirituality

Spirituality

When I was seven years old, I never doubted what was taught to me. I had a Heavenly Father who loved me and wanted me to be happy. If I prayed to Him, he could watch over my friends and loved ones, or bless our food, or make my headache go away. And someday, if I was good, I would go up to Heaven and be with my family Forever.

When I was twelve, I was a young woman of faith and integrity. I knew, as any faithful Mormon youth would, that the Church was true, that Jesus was the Christ, that the Book of Mormon was a true record of His visit to the Americas, that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and that the president of the Church was a Prophet on earth in these latter-days.

When I was seventeen, I never failed to believe in and act upon what I knew was right. I recognized that many of my peers found my beliefs strange and different, and I thrived on that. Although I began to skip meetings and services, I still knew in my heart that the Church was true.

When I was in college, I began to open my mind to other ideas. I learned about Sociology and the history of the concept of religion. I learned about other belief systems. I roomed with an agnostic who completed her conversion to atheism during the very years I knew her. I stepped back from what I had known all my life. I realized that I didn’t truly believe it anymore. Maybe I never truly did.

Now, at the age of 26, I’ve come to an uncomfortable discovery: I’m ready to believe in something again.

The place that Church and Religion held in my life has not yet been filled with something meaningful. Don’t mistake me to mean that I’m actively seeking a Christian congregation to go join. Or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Islamic, or Wiccan, or Druid. I’m ready to find what I know is right, and true, and good. Maybe God exists. Maybe He actually watches us. (Maybe we’re His bowl of sea monkeys that He stirs up every millenium or three.) Maybe God is only a concept for a Unity that we as humans cannot physically comprehend. Maybe there is a Tao, or a Force, or some other universal power of which we are all part. Maybe we each have much more mental power than we realize. Maybe, when we pray, we make our own prayers a reality, due to our sheer force of undoubting belief. Maybe when we die, we’ll each wink out of existence and into oblivion and the impossibly profound concept of non-existence.

I don’t know.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. Diana’s Manual of Spiritual Consciousness doesn’t exist — and if it did, it would only apply to me, and me alone. You would have to determine what applied to you, and adapt the knowledge to your own beliefs. I don’t hold the answers.

…But once I figure something out, I’ll let you know.

ruminations, weight loss

Gone for a Walk

I decided this evening after work, around 9:15 or so, to go deposit a couple of eBay checks that had been living in my wallet for way too long. I stuck my pen in my hair, wallet and keys in my pockets, and I was on my way.

Once I’d hit the ATM and checked my balance, I didn’t want to go home. It was too nice out. So, I decided to walk. I walked down Main Street, trying to decide where to walk. I glanced up at the Huntington Bank clock. Flip — 67 degrees. Flip — 9:22pm. Flip — 67 degrees…

At any rate, campus would be ideal for walking, being dimly lit and without through streets… but I wasn’t going to walk 15 minutes just to walk around, then walk 15 minutes back afterwards. Maybe I’d walk the residential streets. And that’s what I’d decided, until about five steps from the crosswalk by the Corner Grill. I could see the Administration Building down Court Street, and decided that the University wasn’t that far away… I crossed the street at the signal, and walked past the Corner Grill, past the Methodist Church, past the Courthouse, all the while fixating on the Admin Building and the cool, still night.

About five steps from Enterprise Street and three blocks from BGSU, I decided that the University really was too far to walk just for sport, and I made a quick left. This is where the usual mental drift that accompanies my solitary walks began. Not that I walk in front of moving vehicles or get myself lost, but that I think of the strangest random things, like:

  • I really don’t have that many friends I can hang out with anymore. My Senior year at BGSU, I’d finally made enough friends that, if I felt like being social, I could call up Beth or knock on Donna’s door upstairs or go visit Tim two floors up. I still have two local acquaintances that I went to BGSU with, but I really wouldn’t feel as comfortable just calling them up out of the blue and going to their apartments to play PS2 or something.
  • I’ve had this weird habit ever since that Creative Writing curriculum in third grade. When things happen around me or near me, I involuntarily try to compose the appropriate prose in my head — as if I were writing my life’s story moment by moment. I heard some guy make a noise down the alley and thought, “It sounded like a a retch, or grunt, or some other incoherent cry.” Hey, I never said it was good… only involuntary.
  • I really have gained a lot of weight. I realized this as I looked down at my shadow before me. Then I realized that my arms touch my sides when I walk. Not just at my hips, not just my armpits, and not just my boobs. My entire side. This was somehow more disturbing to me than my recent discovery of a “gut flap.” It only strengthened my resolve to somehow lose 45 pounds in eight or nine months.

At any rate, I finally looped back around and joined up with Main Street again, this time the opposite direction. Walking back under the Huntington Bank sign, I looked up. Flip — 9:47pm. Flip — 63 degrees. Flip — 9:47pm…

the ongoing saga of my job

Just Another Day…

Hey, for once I worked an 8-hour day! Yeah, we were doing so well that we actually took a one-hour lunch and everything. Just for reference, yesterday I worked a 14-hour day. Seriously. My co-worker and almost-supervisor, Loni, worked an hour and a half more than me, since she came in at 6am. Damn, that sucked. Makes the normal 8-hour day seem like a luxury instead of a burden.

OK, all you people who are still in college. All you people who hate your 8:30am classes. All you people who think your life is more tedious and horrible than anyone else’s. Who hate your 15-hour-a-week job. Who can’t wait to graduate and get the hell out of school. Yeah, you. I’ve got an update for you. You have it MADE. You have about, what, three to five hours of the day max that you have to spend in class? Then go to your job for about three hours, if you’re part time? I remember that. I didn’t realize how cool it was, either.

Late this August, as I was hopping the cab to work, I saw all the collegians trudging to campus for their first day back to school. The only thing I wanted to do just then was to jump out of the cab and be in college again. Go to class, then come home an hour later and nap. Play on my computer. Go to class again. Go take some photos. IM with friends. Walk up to Timmay’s room and see his latest tech-toy. –Seems a little counterproductive, my fantasy, since I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in December 2001.

Nothing like dreaming of the past while rushing for the future.

site-related

Blog Begins

I’m just getting my new personal site up and running, and figured what the hell. Might as well hop on the blogging bandwagon. I mean, I knew about these crazy insano people who felt like they needed to update the world on their life’s progress, but until Sheryl pointed me toward her page, I didn’t know it had a name. Then it occured to me that the few people who would actually read this page might give a damn about what’s going on in my life. So, I’m devoting my blog to weird, random shit that goes on that doesn’t fall into one of my other categories.

Just as a general update: as of 5:15pm or so today, the only functioning sections of the.details are the wedding info and the blog. I’m hoping to get some more going before long, but I’ve still gotta do laundry with Aaron and do some general cleaning today. Working 12-hour days kinda puts a cramp in my webbing style during the week, although this new cable internet is making me awfully happy.

Today’s music clip: Candy Ass by The Dirtbombs [4.3MB]